Replicability and Scalability
Unlike some other initiatives in India, such as MSSRF’s VKCs, Gyandoot was designed and implemented in a top-down approach resulting in less relevance in the types of services offered and the manner in which they are delivered. Awareness of Gyandoot among the poor could have been improved by increasing the involvement of NGOs and community-based organizations.
Drishtee—a private sector-led initiative—is attempting to take Gyandootto scale throughout the country, adding services and transforming it in
the process.
4.10. Putting It Together—Local Markets and the Roles of Different Sectors
When deciding how to move from the present toward the desired future, it helps to know where the beginning and end points are. Is the current context one in which the market is still latent and must be developed before a commercial model could be sustained? Is there a base of strong NGOs that could take on leadership roles to develop social enterprises? Do private sector partners exist with relevant skills and with an interest in the population to be served? Are the ultimate objectives that social enterprise activities would survive as self-sustaining entities, or would it be more appropriate in this situation to consider them an evolutionary phase toward pure commercial shared access? Are the social development objectives in this case amenable to being performed in private sector access facilities when that phase of the market evolution arrives?
Part of the answer will be determined by geographic considerations, population and income characteristics, and available infrastructure. In urban areas, the private sector often provides the bulk of shared-access facilities through cybercafés, reflecting existing market demand and purchasing power. However, the services provided by cybercafés are typically very limited and serve the needs of educated elites whose members are already computer literate and can afford market prices. Government and civil society organizations can complement the private sector’s role in urban and semiurban areas by providing low-cost access through post offices or other government entities, particularly to facilitate e-Government services. Civil society’s role may be important in supporting access for the urban poor, providing a mix of capacity-building services, relevant content, and low-cost access (as in the case of CDI in Brazil’s urban centers).
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